Japanese Popular Prints: From Votive Slips to Playing Cards

The rationale for this book was to expose to a western audience artefacts made using woodblock which are largely unknown outside Japan.

The western definition and knowledge of Japanese woodblock is fairly narrowly focused on ukiyo-e and knowledge of other areas is limited. I chose to make the definition as broad as possible to allow for a selection of objects which would be unusual and challenging even for a Japanese audience. The provision of a cultural context to the selected objects was fundamental to the project.

Research began with secondary English sources which were extremely limited as this subject has never been covered before. Japanese secondary sources provided extensive background information however in many areas it was insufficient to provide adequate analysis of the objects and their uses. Several research trips to Japan were required to conduct interviews with both practitioners and collectors to complete the investigation of the artefacts.

Picture research was particularly challenging due to the ephemeral nature of the objects of research. Due to their perceived lack of cultural status, few collections exist and indeed very few examples survive. I sourced examples from public and private collections in Japan, Germany, Holland, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

Rebecca Salter is a well-known British printmaker. She lived in Japan for six years and is an acknowledged authority on Japanese woodblock printing. She is the author of Japanese Woodblock Printing. Rebecca Salter was on the faculty of UAL up to 2011.

Her research interests include:

Contemporary printmaking, Japanese printmaking, Cultural History of Print, Edo Period Japanese popular culture

Profile

Rebecca Salter graduated from Bristol Polytechnic and then spent two years as a research student at Kyoto City University of the Arts, Japan. While In Japan she was trained in the technique of Japanese woodblock by Kurosaki Akira and she combines this interest with her main practice in painting. In 1997 she won the Cheltenham Open Drawing award (first prize), and in 1995 & 2003 respectively she was awareded the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award. In 2003 she was artist in residence at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in Connecticut and a suite of drawings produced during the residency were subsequently acquired by the Yale Center for British Art, Connecticut, New Haven.

Rebecca Salter's work has been featured in numerous international solo and group exhibitions since 1982, including several solo shows at Jill George Gallery, London (1994/98/2000), Howard Scott Gallery in New York (1997/99/2001/04), as well as Galerie Michael Sturm in Stuttgart, Germany (1999, 2001), Gallery Sowaka in Kyoto, Japan (1999/2000) and Fosterart, London (2004).

She is the author of several handbooks on the history of Japanese woodblock - her latest volume, 'Japanese Popular Prints - From Votiv Slips to Playing Cards' has been recently been published by A&C Black Ltd /University of Hawaii Press in June 2006.

Current Research - Artist Statement

"My painting, both in the way it is produced and the way it is perceived, is influenced by a meditative tradition which is widely considered oriental in origin and nature. Recent work concentrates on investigation of the quality and character of the drawn line with particular reference to differences between the occidental and the oriental.

My research related to woodblock focuses on the technique and how it is still used today and the role of woodblock in the production of everyday objects which are transformed to acquire deeper cultural significance. I am currently engaged in a 3 year film project to record interviews with surviving craftsmen/makers in Japan to produce a comprehensive archive of the techinique."

• Author